An angular-featured, fair-haired beauty who emerged from ingenue to leading lady, Ellen Pompeo caught audiences’ attention in several films before hooking them with her breakout role in the popular television medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, 2005 - ).

The actress was born in Boston, then lived for a time as a child on New York's Upper West Side. She eventually moved to Miami, where she was a cocktail waitress before heading back to New York, where in 1996 she was bartending at the SoHo Bar & Grill when an agent approached her about appearing in commercials, and she subsequently landed her first spot the next day, soon, appearing in commercials for Citibank and L'Oreal....